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Mark Zuckerberg's biggest legal nightmare yet could cost Meta $1.4T

the-independent.com

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg's biggest legal nightmare yet could cost Meta $1.4T

#151

Post by sometimes_all »

mindslight wrote: post #123
RetroTechie wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those leaders own full responsibility for this. Sorry, no free pass. No doubt there's lots of decent people working at FB. But through their work they do support a company with questionable ethics. Same goes for FB users. Not judging any of FB's employees (or users) here! But unless you're starving or someone's whipping you, you have a choice to go elsewhere.

This framing is directly at odds with the top-level comment. "the whole business is rotten." If someone is a professional programmer and wants to maintain a similar level of income, where do you propose they go? There are similar perverse incentives at every other big tech company. While I agree that it's certainly possible for someone to avoid working for big tech and horrible companies in general, it's not possible…

To quote Don Draper: "that's what the money is for".

By all means go work for big tech if you want to, it's a free country, but then you don't get to wash your hands off the bad things your company's doing by saying stuff like "the execs made us do it" or "the execs overruled us".

There's nothing unproductive in calling out denying responsibility/culpability. Some would say it's practically mandatory.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's biggest legal nightmare yet could cost Meta $1.4T

#152

Post by ethbr1 »

bigwheels wrote: post #118
tremon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the punishment should also have a sufficient deterrent effect. If the punishment can't sufficiently deter the behaviour, it should at least deter the capital enabling that behaviour at scale. In other words: void the stock.

Are you going to take away all of Zuckerberg's vast personal fortune, and all the other execs at Meta? What about all the folks who've wokred as engineer and product managers? Otherwise they're still making out like bandits.

The Sackler family ultimately had to pay $6.5b of ~$10b they took out of the Purdue Pharma in its last decade of control.

It'd be more than fair that Zuckerberg has to pay 65% of his personal wealth gained by preying on adolescent insecurities.

And anyone else who was in a leadership role at Meta.

The deterrent is not allowing "Oops, I created a bad social outcome, but I'm keeping the profit I made from it" to be a viable way of getting rich.

And at least plant some doubt in folks doing evil that retribution might claw back their wealth in the future.

   1. Facebook knew its products were addictive.
   2. They knew this addiction had negative effects on its users.
   3. After knowing the above, they tried to make them more addictive to make more money.
It's not a complicated judgement call.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's biggest legal nightmare yet could cost Meta $1.4T

#153

Post by RetroTechie »

mindslight wrote: post #123
RetroTechie wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those leaders own full responsibility for this. Sorry, no free pass. No doubt there's lots of decent people working at FB. But through their work they do support a company with questionable ethics. Same goes for FB users. Not judging any of FB's employees (or users) here! But unless you're starving or someone's whipping you, you have a choice to go elsewhere.

This framing is directly at odds with the top-level comment. "the whole business is rotten." If someone is a professional programmer and wants to maintain a similar level of income, where do you propose they go? There are similar perverse incentives at every other big tech company. While I agree that it's certainly possible for someone to avoid working for big tech and horrible companies in general, it's not possible…

> This framing is directly at odds with the top-level comment. "the whole business is rotten."

No, both apply. I agree it doesn't help to take aim at lower-level employees. The Zuck & co at the helm, and underlying causes that produce a laser-focus on "shareholder value", are both better targets.

But Meta has many employees, including various levels of management. Each of them can discuss shaky-ethics decisions, organise, protest, or.. quit.

Just saying that every cog in the machinery carries some responsibility. Some more than others.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's biggest legal nightmare yet could cost Meta $1.4T

#155

Post by tolerance »

ryandvm wrote: post #89
austin-cheney wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all fairness social media is in the same kind of business model as porn and gambling. None of that is forced on anybody. If you don't want those in your life then just don't consume them. If you don't want them in your household use a DNS blocker. How much should we really parent the rest of society?

It's a fair question, but it irritates me because it suggests that we should accept the self-destruction of vast swaths of the population in the name of perfect liberty. The reality is that we have a lot of institutions that prey on consumers' biology in a way that is overpowering for the average individual. Social media, ragebait news, and junk food are good examples of legal products that hijack human tendencies fo…

> It's a fair question, but it irritates me because it suggests that we should accept the self-destruction of vast swaths of the population in the name of perfect liberty.

We shouldn't. But to what end?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's biggest legal nightmare yet could cost Meta $1.4T

#156

Post by kingleopold »

davedx wrote: post #15

Some useful context in here: https://attorneygenerallynnfitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024... "Meta knew what it was doing" In December 2015, CEO Zuckerberg listed as one of Meta’s goals for 2016: “Time spent [on the Platorms] increase by 12%” over the following three years. And as of November 2016, Meta’s “overall goal remain[ed] total teen time spent … with some specific efforts (Instagram) taking on tighter focused…

fun fact: lots of smart META teams knew it too and they went it with because ethics can be bought. Stock perf. and TOC bought them along the way so they can exit/retire.

Corporations are evil but teams that work there are even more evil than them. Because they are also part of the decision makers, not just CEO.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's biggest legal nightmare yet could cost Meta $1.4T

#157

Post by cyanydeez »

jm4 wrote: post #140
gmerc wrote: post #31

Corporate Death Penalty is exactly what the country needs to recover from this nightmare.

That has far reaching unintended consequences. Thousands of people out of jobs, investors out of money, etc. We’re not just talking fat cat shareholders. There are institutional investors, pension plans, 401k’s. Killing a company like Meta has a financial impact on virtually everyone in the country when the people we’re actually trying to punish are the slimeball CEO and his inner circle of executives. Our system can…

far greater consequences to let business become the defacto unelected government.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's biggest legal nightmare yet could cost Meta $1.4T

#158

Post by BizarroLand »

brk wrote: post #68
gmerc wrote: post #31

Corporate Death Penalty is exactly what the country needs to recover from this nightmare.

While that is certainly a topic worth pursuing, especially for anyone with a "corporations are people" argument, the challenge is the immediate vacuum afterwards, which is likely to attract copy-cats. You might "execute" a corporation for proven anti-human actions, but that takes time. New corporations can crop up, maybe even involving some of the same prior executives, and the cycle starts again.

I feel like if you know that the previous company was executed for its crimes, its property auctioned off to the highest bidder, and its managers and executives thrown in prison, that THAT would have a chilling effect on other companies that might follow in their footsteps.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's biggest legal nightmare yet could cost Meta $1.4T

#159

Post by NickC25 »

999900000999 wrote: post #121
NickC25 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need Instagram ads to tell you which VSTs to buy, you haven't: 1. spent enough time on KVR or Gearslutz, discussing with other musicians, hobbyists, plugin nerds and developers who are building and battle testing these plugins. 2. spent enough time making music....which is why you spend money on VSTs to begin with. 3. spent time learning to build your own plugins or VCV Rack modules. 4. watched YT videos made…

I don’t solely rely on Instagram for this. My more expensive VSTs, the complete Korg Collection, I purchased after owning Korg Gadget for a while. But if I see something cool for 20$ on instagram, why not? > 3. spent time learning to build your own plugins or VCV Rack modules. I don’t like C++ or other low level programming languages. I guess I could now vibe code something, but then the comments would chastise me fo…

>but then the comments would chastise me for that.

Who gives a shit? You use AI to vibecode a tool you use to make music...cool, if it works for you and you make cool music with it, good. Honestly, nobody would even know, unless you disclosed it.

A filter is a filter is a filter. If you built one by writing all the code yourself, great. If a LLM generates the code for a filter, and you use it in your tracks, cool, it's likely nobody could even tell.

Make music for yourself my friend. Nobody will care how its made if it's cool music.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's biggest legal nightmare yet could cost Meta $1.4T

#160

Post by Anonbrit »

ethbr1 wrote: post #152
bigwheels wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you going to take away all of Zuckerberg's vast personal fortune, and all the other execs at Meta? What about all the folks who've wokred as engineer and product managers? Otherwise they're still making out like bandits.

The Sackler family ultimately had to pay $6.5b of ~$10b they took out of the Purdue Pharma in its last decade of control. It'd be more than fair that Zuckerberg has to pay 65% of his personal wealth gained by preying on adolescent insecurities. And anyone else who was in a leadership role at Meta. The deterrent is not allowing "Oops, I created a bad social outcome, but I'm keeping the profit I made from it" to be a v…

Yet we still have tobacco and vape companies
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